


Denver, or Somewhere Like It

by sailoreyes67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholism, Christmas, Flashbacks, Gen, Hell, Holiday, M/M, puking, schmoop & angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:46:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailoreyes67/pseuds/sailoreyes67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean goes through withdrawal under the Christmas lights and stars, and things come up in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denver, or Somewhere Like It

When he wakes up, his heart is racing. He doesn’t know why, can’t remember what he was dreaming. He rolls over, and then over again. It’s pitch-dark in the room, and silent except for his own noisy breathing. Sam is curled up facing the window (which doesn’t quite close all the way, letting in an unreasonable amount of cold air for such a small crack), and Cas is sitting in his customary chair between their two beds. “Watching over them” as he says, except, of course, that he’s sleeping, head testing on Sam’s butt, his mouth half-open.

 

He always says he doesn’t sleep, but he fucking does _._ Dean _would_ tell him to get his own damn room, but it’s kind of a touchy subject---every time Cas sleeps, it seems like he gets a little bit more human. Besides, it’s kind of comforting, having him here.

 

Dean is already reaching for the flask of whiskey that should be stashed on the floor beside his bed before he remembers---it isn’t there. Sam threw it out---threw _all_ of it out---yelling something about how Dean had to _get it together_ , and, okay, maybe Sam had good reason, seeing as Dean had just fucked up a simple vampire hunt, because _maybe_ there’d been a little too much alcohol in his system, but _goddamn_ , he _hates_ hunting vampires. Hates it, hates it, hates it. Too many feelings attached, these days. Too many memories.

 

And okay, maybe Sam had to drive them back to the motel after that, and maybe he let Cas have the front seat, and _maybe,_ just _maybe,_  Dean had thrown Sam hard against the wall growling about how there was no way any of that was happening and Sam had yelled back at him that there was _really teally no way_ he was letting Dean behind the wheel in the state he was in; and maybe Dean had knocked one of Sam’s teeth out in the ensuing wrestling match that had ended in Sam forcibly throwing Dean into the backseat. _Maybe_. He doesn’t really remember that part. What he does remember is Sam dragging him out of the back seat and yelling at him while he threw every last ounce of alcohol they owned into the motel garbage bin.

 

The real blow had been when Cas quietly backed Sam up; and sometime after that, Dean vaguely remembers agreeing to stop drinking, and then, Sam bundling him into bed. He remembers the next day passing in a haze of shakes and thirst and utter misery, and going to sleep again as soon as he could, just wanting for everything to be quiet and stop trembling. He remembers begging to leave this place, to _drive_ , and Sam saying something about how this whole detoxing thing would be easier for Dean if he weren’t driving around and driving past bars all the time---if they stopped moving for a little while. But it doesn’t feel like _they’ve_ stopped moving. It feels like the whole world has stopped moving, and where Dean was a bug on the windshield of a car headed straight for a collision, now he’s a bug with three broken legs trying to move between smashed glass and fractured metal.

  
Or something.

 

He just wants it all to move again.

 

He knows Sam really just wants to stay to look at the college here and  if Dean doesn’t “ _get it together”_ then one day he’ll wake up and they’ll have settled down for good---a trio of useless, pathetic, sober lumps.

 

He rolls the other way in bed. God, he’s tossing and turning like a friggin’ three-year-old---like Sam before Dean trained him out of it because it’s so obnoxious when you’re the person who’s trying to sleep two inches away.

 

He doesn’t really remember getting out of bed, but the next thing he knows, he’s standing on the alcohol-stained wooden floor, shivering. It’s cold, and he notices distantly that his hands are shaking as he pulls on his boots and his leather jacket, although he’s not sure if it’s from the temperature, or from something else.

 

The Impala smells of leather and gun oil and whiskey, and it makes Dean want to hurl. He takes several deep breaths and gulps from the giant water bottle he’s been keeping close to him instead of a flask. God, his mouth is _so_ dry.

 

He twists the key in the ignition and is almost deafened by a sudden onslaught of holiday music pouring out from the radio. Right. Christmas. He’d almost forgotten. He’s not sure what day it is (he hasn’t been living in an alcohol haze all month, he just doesn’t keep track of dates all that well, okay?) Christmas could be next week, or even yesterday.

 

He switches off the radio and puts in a Led Zeppelin tape instead. His hands are shaking so hard that he almost drops it on the floor twice, but in the end he’s rewarded with the opening notes of “Stairway to Heaven” and he takes off, singing under his breath.

 

(His voice is shaking.)

 

He hasn’t even made it halfway through the song before his stomach lurches and he has to pull over. He yanks the door open and practically falls out the driver’s seat, and within seconds he’s throwing up--- _water_ , goddamnit, it’s the only thing he’s had since this whole damn thing started, he is fucking puking _water_ and there’s _so_ much wrong about that---into the grass. Stomach, chest, both are heaving and heaving; hands pressed up against them because it _hurts_. He’s not throwing up anything now, just bile and dry-heaving and---oh _fuck_ \---little clots of blood.

 

_He’s on Alistair’s rack at the end of a session, being offered the blade, although he still refuses to take it._

 

  
_“You’ll regret that choice.” Alistair says, and he shoves the knife down the closest thing Dean has to a throat these days, and_ twists _. Dean heaves, uncontrollably, and up comes blood, so much blood, more blood than his non-body should be able to hold, flooding out his throat, out his chest, drowning him; he’s going to drown in his own blood until it all fades away, and he won’t come slamming back to consciousness until the beginning of another session... but he can’t bring himself to care. It’s all going black..._  


 

There are specks of red on the grass, glowing darkly in the soft moonlight like little shreds of a soul. He can’t look away, although he should. He closes his eyes instead, and that’s even worse, because now he wants to throw up some more. And he _can’t_. He can’t throw up again; he can’t go back there in his mind, he _can’t,_ there’s nothing worse than going back there because the next session had been the last. His last on that end of that knife, and then--- _and then---_ He takes a long gulp of his water, even though he knows that’s stupid; knows that’s what made him puke in the first place; and gags. He feels better afterwards, though, throat less searingly dry, and climbs up onto the hood of the Impala.

 

The stars are out.

 

That’s the first thing he notices. The sky isn’t as full of them as it could be, because he’s noy 100% away from streetlights here, but it’s pretty close. It’s more than enough pinpricks of light to remind him that he is on Earth, not in Hell.

 

(Hell didn’t have stars. Hell only had fire and blood.)

 

There’s another kind of light, too, one he can’t place for a second. Then it hits him: it’s Christmas lights, some golden-white, some multicolored, wrapped around the winter skeletons of trees and winking at him from the windows of otherwise darkened houses.

 

He thinks, for a moment, about calling Sam, so they could sit here and look at the stars and Christmas lights together. It’d be a perfect night for a few drinks and a good long stargazing session, if maybe a little cold.

 

And if Sam’s with him, he can’t go back to Hell.

 

Not like Sam would really protect him, these days. After all, Sam just wants Dean gone so he can have a normal life. He as good as said so by not looking for him in when he was in Purgatory, and, now... (he’s not going to throw up again, he’s not---he’s _not_ going to end up in Hell.)

 

Besides, he doesn’t want Sam to know he’s out here. He doesn’t even remember why he left, now, but he knows he wasn’t supposed to.

 

So he doesn’t call---he won’t.

 

Something clenches in his throat that isn’t even the urge to vomit anymore, and then he’s sobbing. He’s rocking back and forth where he’s sitting on the hood of the Impala, shoulders heaving and snot running down his nose, and he’s not sure he really knows the difference between crying and throwing up after all. The world seems to squeeze down to nothing but tears and his body, rocking, rocking, _rocking,_ the way he did when he was a little kid; totally overwhelmed, suddenly supposed to be an adult just days after his whole world fell to pieces.

 

Eventually the uncrontrollable sobbing stops, just as suddenly as it came, but Dean is still shaking and sniffing back tears. There’s pain where his arms are wrapped around his chest, but if he doesn’t hold on this tightly he’ll fly apart into a million pieces, like the broken toy of Alistair’s that he was and is and always will be. (Alistair was the only one who ever thought he was good enough.

 

How is he supposed to let go of that?)

 

God, fuck, he hasn’t thought about this stuff in years. His stomach lurches again, warningly, and he claps a hand over his mouth. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

 

And then there are soft footsteps behind him; a woman’s voice.

 

“Hey. Are you okay?”

 

Dean jumps about a mile into the air, and turns around as slowly as he can. Every instinct tells him to attack, kill-or-be-killed, but he controls himself. Just barely.

 

The woman is tall, with long, dark hair with a knitted hat over it, a fluffy brown fake-fur-looking coat, and a yellow Dollar General bag full of brightly colored wrapping paper slung over one shoulder. Her dark denim-clad legs seem to melt into the ground.

 

Dean swallows. “I’m fine,” he says. He hides his hands behind his back because they’re shaking like holy fuck. He’s not sure if he should assume the woman is a ghost or a demon or truly just a person---a person he doesn’t want to see him like this.

 

The woman hesitates. “Are you sure?” she asks. “It’s so cold out. You could come inside,” she gestures at the house behind her, “warm up a little?”

 

Dean smiles, to the best of his ability. “That’s awfully kind of you, but, no.”

 

When the woman still doesn’t move he glares, makes himself look like as threatening possible (like the monster he knows that he is). It must work, even in the low light, because the stranger ducks her head, and disappears.

 

And Dean figures that’s that, except a few minutes later she comes back out, carrying something that’s leaking a warmth he can feel even from a distance.

 

It’s a _cup_ , and Dean’s heart leaps hopefully even as he tells himself no, no, no; he promised Sam and Cas.

 

But it isn’t alcohol.

 

(“Would you like some hot chocolate?”

 

  
_Mommy used to make hot chocolate._ )

 

Dean accepts without a word. He shouldn’t, but he can’t help it.

 

The woman doesn’t leave, just stands there watching as he sips it slowly; mostly just warming his hands on the mug, hoping it doesn’t make him puke again. It probably will, but god, anything liquid feels so good right now; he’s so _fucking_ thirsty.

 

After a few minutes she speaks again, quiet. “Do you have anyone to go to?”

 

“Yes.” Dean says shortly, but doesn’t elaborate.

 

There are few more minutes of silence, filled with nothing but his increasingly desperate, increasingly uncontrolled slurping.

 

“Are you sure you won’t---”

 

“NO!” Dean yells, and then he’s alone, and he’s not sure if he’s happy about that or just... sad. (She left him; everyone leaves him, and it’s all he deserves.) But whatever. He finishes the hot chocolate and leans back on his hands.

 

He feels strangely peaceful, even as more tears prick at his eyelids and he pushes them back, years of repressing emotions not letting him have another onslaught of _that_. He might even have stopped shaking, but he’s not sure.

 

_(The stars and Christmas lights really are beautiful.)_

 

He’s so fucking cold, even with the hot chocolate; but it makes him feel _alive_ , alive like he hasn’t felt in years---since Hell maybe, since he started drowning everything in booze and never ever letting it surface; and he doesn’t want to admit that his newfound sobriety might have something to do with the feeling too. Because it’s not that; it’s not; but whatever it is that’s making things so crystal clear right now is almost as wonderful as it is awful, because there are _stars_ , so many little stars and the lights all around the Christmas trees are shining like stars too and he _isn’t_ _shaking._  


 

He’s not sure how much time passes like that before his stomach seizes and he’s throwing up violently, brown and warm, on the grass next to his old puke.

 

_A blade comes down and chops him in two._

 

***

 

When he can, Dean climbs back onto the Impala (not _in_ her, and no, he doesn’t know why) facing the other direction han before, and what he sees nearly knocks him off the hood of the car; makes him dizzy and his skin prickle.

 

He squeezes his eyes shut, swallows against a whole new wave of nausea, and looks again, cautiously, prepared this time.

 

There’s a city lying spread out below him, all brightness and twinkling lights like the stars really have landed here on Earth. Apparently he’s on the edge of a cliff or something, because the city’s almost straight down below him, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to be there, in that magical place where the stars are topside. He gets back in his car, fingers on the wheel numb with cold, and drives down into the mess of bright lights. It feels like a dream, suddenly, like he’s descending into... well, descending.

 

He doesn’t know what he was thinking. The city’s not nearly as magical from inside as it was from up there. It’s just an ordinary city, music thumping softly in the distance, almost below his consciousness, the occasional cars and pedestrians going about their business---hurrying out of the 24-hour WalMart with wrapped packages in their arms and shifty looks on their faces. It _is_ quiet, though, almost remarkably so---even considering how late it is. It’s all lit up for Christmas, with rainbow lights strung around evergreens and a giant Santa staring at him out of an otherwise darkened storefront, across the street from a house with a lifesized manger scene in the front yard; shadowed now... but the rest of it is just endless squares of road and sidewalk and storefront.

 

He drives around aimlessly until he finds himself in a pitch-dark alley. ‘Silent Night’ is playing somewhere far away; just loud enough that he can identify it only after he rolls down the window and listens carefully.

 

Man, this would be a great time to go get Sam and Cas so they could sit around in the dark, listening to this not quite audible music, and play drinking games. He’s already reaching for the bottle when he remembers.

 

It’s not there.

 

Alright. Alright. That’s alright. He can do this---live without it. Never mind that he’s shaking and wants to hurl again. Stupid Christmas music is still playing---now it’s Jingle Bell Rock, for fuck’s sake---and he just---he just---he’s good. He latches onto the music; follows it until he finds where it shatters his sensitive eardrums.

 

It’s coming from a pub. He’s not surprised; after all, why would he be? It feels right, familiar, and normally he’d go in without thinking about it. He almost does now, but then Sam’s admonitions start ringing in his ears. (Sam, screaming fruiously as whiskey and liquor and bourbon---God, precious, _precious_ stuff---all go flying into the garbage. Sam, calling him “just like Dad.” derision ringing through the air. And Sam if he were here now, bitchfacing and shouting at him, “Don’t you _dare_ go in that bar, Dean!”)

 

But where would the harm really be if he just _went in_? All he wants to do is go in. This whole night has him struck with an intense craving for human company---(that’s what this craving is---human company---just human company) He’ll  go in and mingle, and---and---he won’t even buy anything. No harm done.

 

(His hand is shaking as he pushes the pub door open.)

 

A bell jangles noisily above his head, and then everything just happens really fast.

 

“What can I get you?” the bartender asks, and she’s cute, okay, so Dean orders a beer. It’s wrong to go into a pub and not buy anything, _alright_ , especially from a cute bartender...

 

The first swallow feels so damn good. His whole body relaxes, and he needed this, okay, he fucking _needed_ this.

 

He downs it, noticing distantly that the pub isn’t nearly as lively or happy inside as it had seemed from outside--kind of like the city itself. Sure, the holiday music is loud and robust, and rainbow colored lights line every possible surface, but the few people inside seem sad and lonely, staring into their drinks in a way Dean’s seen a hundred times, hell, a way Dean’s _done_ a hundred times. Like whatever it is they’re longing for will somehow be found if they can just get to the bottom of that bottle, that glass, that _whatever_ \---but with a resignation that shows they know they know it really won’t.

 

Dean doesn’t mind though; he’s too happy about finally having a beer in his hands.

 

(He’s ordering another before he even knows it.)

 

After that he’s not even sure _what_ he’s drinking. Or what number of it _it_ is. But it’s good. Okay? (In his head he’s already concocting a million explanations to a furious Sam about why he can’t actually do this, this quitting thing.) And after that he just doesn’t care about how pissed Sam is going to be. He feels _good_. He feels nothing, and that’s good.

 

He’s vaguely aware of stumbling out of the pub with the other drunks, all of them pushed out into the freezing cold darkness together, but then they go in their separate, unsociable directions and everything goes dark and fuzzy and he pukes all over somebody’s yard and in the distance there’s pain, _pain,_ and Alistair’s voice saying “ _I knew you had it in you.”_ as he touches Dean in places he used to consider his own; touches him like it’s a fucking reward---but it’s distant, _distant,_ so it’s okay.

 

***

 

He opens his eyes to blinding lights. So fucking bright and blue, it’s like they’re trying to burn a hole through his brain, and spinning. He squeezes his eyes shut again but it’s like it’s burning through the skin of his eyelids now. There’s a child shouting somewhere---and a thousand different holiday songs coming from a thousand different directions; slicing into his skull and making him nauseus. He’s sitting against some kind of brick wall, and it smells like garbage and vomit and sickeningly sweet sugarplums, for some reason.

 

“Dean.” a voice says, way too close to his ear, and he groans in response. It’s Cas, next to him with an arm wrapped around his side, trying to pull him to his feet.

 

He can’t get up. He’s going to hurl, dammit.

 

Sam’s voice comes from his other side, saying something soft, and then he and Cas are having a whispered conversation around Dean’s unmoving form and he catches just every few words, like “hangover” and “relapse” and “dammit”.

 

“M’sorry,” he says, and the conversation stops. Sam and Cas are both looking at him, and he wants to sink into the ground. His eyes still won’t quite focus so he blinks, wildly. (It has nothing whatsoever to do with wanting to cry.) “I shoulda--- m’sorry.”

 

“Hey,” Sam says, and he reaches out and strokes the side of Dean’s face.

 

Dean thunks his head against the wall, not meeting Sam’s eyes. Not meeting Cas’ either, for all they both keep trying to seek him out. It sends a knife of pain straight through his skull, but Dean doesn’t care. Anything to keep them from looking at him like that.

 

“HEY.” Sam says again, louder, shaking his shoulder, and it makes Dean want to curl up and puke.

 

“Yell at me, don’t, whatever, I don’t care.” Dean mutters. And he really doesn’t. He keeps his eyes stubbornly closed.

 

He just wants to _sleep_.

 

Sam stops. His hand comes up off Dean’s shoulder and Dean thinks he actually feels it hovering there above him for the long moment of relative silence that follows. He opens his eyes, cautiously.

 

Sam is looking at him, his expression something Dean can’t quite place, for all his endless years of experience with Sam’s expressions. It’s surprisingly not bitchface, and he’s doing that... _thing_ with his eyes.

 

“Dean.” Sam says again, and his voice is soft this time, gentle.

 

“It’s okay.”

 

“What?” he didn’t hear Sam right, can’t have. Or maybe he’s not really awake after all.

 

“It’s one slip, it was bound to happen. You’ll get past this, I know you will... Cas, can you get him back?”

 

“Of course.”

 

It’s so strange and his head is pounding and he expected Sam to be mad.

 

He’s so fuzzy that he barely even notices when he’s landing facefirst in his soft warm bed and Cas is collapsing onto the floor with a stifled gasp.

 

Dean mushes his face into the cool pillow and starts to fall asleep, is just barely aware of Cas’ tender voice and movements, of warm blankets being tucked around him, through the haze of disjointed dreams about torture... and finally the soft rumble of the Impala, and when he wakes up properly, Sam is there.

 

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

 

“Like crap.” Dean answers honestly.

 

“Yeah.” Sam says. He sits down heavily on his bed and leans forward, hands on his knees. “Listen, I know how you feel. I...” he trails off, staring at the ceiling, forehead creased, and Dean gets it. He gets it, and he doesn’t want to go there.

 

“Can we not do chick-flick stuff right now?”

 

A fleeting smile crosses Sam’s face. “Sure.” he stands up. “You want your Christmas presents?”

 

“What?” (Nothing makes sense.) “‘S Christmas?”

 

“Yeah.” Sam says. He turns away, turns back with something small and rectangular, wrapped in newspaper, and presses it into Dean’s hands.

 

“Didn’t get you anything,” Dean mutters.

 

“It’s okay.” Sam nods at the package lying ignored and tiny in Dean’s (Still? Again?) shaking hands. “Open it.” He’s smiling again, a different, small smile that looks like it’s threatening to burst into a huge, heart-stopping Sammy grin, so Dean tears off the wrapping paper.

 

Inside is Dean’s favorite Metallica tape; that he’s been looking for forever. It was a staple for most of his life, but it got destroyed the last time the Impala was in a supernaturally-induced crash.

 

And Sam _hates_ it.

 

“No fucking way.” he says, staring at it, shaky fingers running up and down the plastic spine. Sam grins, then, just as big as his earlier expression promised.

 

“Way. Figure you’ll need something to distract you from all the bars you drive past, right?”

 

Dean smiles back at him. “Yeah,” he says. “I will.”

 

The next thing he knows Cas is shoving a second package into his hands. This one is soft, and squishy, and wrapped in brightly-patterned paper so ridiculous and shiny it hurts just to look at it.

 

“What the fuck.”

 

“It’s my Christmas gift to you.” Cas says, sounding slightly wounded.

 

“Right... Thanks, Cas.”

 

Cas has given him three pairs of lumpy, fuzzy wool socks. Dean stares at them.

 

“I made them. I have been learning how to knit. And I understand it is traditional to give one’s loved ones socks at Christmastime.” Cas hesitates. “...Isn’t it?”

 

“Yeah, Cas.” Dean says. He has a lump the size of _fuck_  in his throat out of nowhere, and he lets Cas pull two of the socks over his bare feet. They’re surprisingly warm, and Dean hadn’t even realized how goddamn _cold_ he still was.

 

“Well?” he asks finally. “Are you two just gonna stand there and stare at me or are you gonna exchange your own Christmas presents? I told you _, I_ didn’t get anything.”

 

Sam and Cas exchange startled-looking glances, and after a moment Sam says, “Alright then.” and leans down and presses a kiss to Cas’ lips.

 

And yeah, it’s a little weird, but Dean wonders if maybe he should’ve seen it coming a long time ago.  He isn’t even surprised when Sam reaches down and smooths Dean’s sticking-up hair down across his forehead, and, he might have been dreaming again, but he’s pretty sure a pair of lips brushed softly across his temple, that he was looking into eyes just exactly, _exactly_ like stars, right before his surroundings faded away, and finally, finally, he lapses into _real_ sleep.


End file.
